jeff_p

I knew that I'd have to pick the right breed with care, now I know which. Thank you.  My current thought was to go down a single breeding Bull route which would make the dock look less tiny and give a good reason for a cattle wagon to move in and out.  Similarly a suitable horse does the same for the horse box.

Jeff

On 15/06/2023 at 09:20, goldngreen said:

Very precise ballasting there. Looking good.

Thank you .. I took to using a paint brush (a "flat" one about 5 or 6mm wide) to push stuff about initially, then (having sharpened the end of the brush into a reasonably sharp point) nudged individual bits of ballast where I wanted them.  Only when absolutely happy did I glue it in place with Woodland Scenics "Scenic Cement" applied with one of those small glue bottles with the thin metal tube (the ones that look suspiciously like the end of a propelling pencil).

Jeff.

What do I think? Awesome.

I think it all starts with choosing a suitable technology (DCC system) which supports the functions you require.  The approach to the wiring of the track, accessories etc will naturally fall out of their documentation and preferred practice guidelines.  Having said that the principle of a power district is that each district is electrically isolated from it neighbours and (effectively) has just two wires feeding each district.

This is something I've been playing with myself using a system initially based on the DCC++ Arduino hardware and firmware, but has since gone fully bespoke using both hardware and software I've been developing.  All good fun

Seven districts ... that's going to be fun

Lovely job on the crane .. I'll have to re-visit mine now

My wife has just pointed out that I should have mentioned that she soldered all the parts to the boards.  So the neat soldering you can see is her work.  It's probably too late to avoid consequences now

Yes,  I know.  I'm waiting for the Arduino version of the rp2040.

Awesome.

3 hours ago, Georgeconna said:

Looks Good but I have no idea what the heck it is for. #Lost

It's an open source (and hardware) alternative to buying a DCC Controller system from the likes of Hornby or Gaugemaster (other manufacturers are available).  To be fair this box is only half of the solution.  If you use this (here: https://github.com/GreyLimit/DCCGenerator ) in limited DCC++ emulation (or indeed just build yourself a DCC++ solution, see here: https://github.com/DccPlusPlus ) and use the JMRI software on a PC then you don't need to buy a commercial solution to operate DCC models and accessories on you layout.

I've also been writing an alternative to JMRI (which I call "The Fat Controller" as it's a substantial chunk of code as well as the other reason) as well as building my own handsets for the actual operation of trains, so I have a completely "open" and relatively cheap DCC solution to operate my model trains (well, train set ).

I started this because my wife and I had a full set of Gaugemaster kit but found it just plain fiddly to operate and spent more time trying to work out how to play trains rather than actually playing with the trains.  My thought was "there has to be something easier and simpler that doesn't place so many hurdles between us and doing what we want".  Replacing all the Gaugemaster equipment with an alternative system wasn't an option (money still doesn't grow on trees our way ) but by chance a member at our local club (Bluelightning in these parts) said "haven't you heard about DCC++ running on an Arduino?".  From there it's all grown out of all proportion.

I have Arduinos (cheap Chinese knock offs mostly) everywhere as I play around with what is possible with them (having had a long IT and programming career behind me) and have been slowly pushing the boundaries of what I can achieve with them.

I have to say that this DCC Generator box has given me the most pleasure so far.  Writing the code to generate the actual "on track" DCC signal accurately in both form and timing has been a challenge, especially on a piece of hardware running at just 16 MHz and with just 2048 BYTES of variable space.  Putting that into perspective: A modern PC is probably getting on for 200 times faster and has 2 million times more writeable memory in it than the basic Arduino Uno (yes; 2,000,000 times, that's not a mistake).

There are still ideas brewing away on the back burner, but I really need to try and spend a little time consolidating some ideas and bringing them together.

Did that help?

Jeff

22 hours ago, Fen End Pit said:

Hi Jeff

Yes, I agree, it would have been operated by an overhead power shaft, but I wouldn't have thought that the power shaft would have been fitted by the different sizes of drive wheel to match the three sizes at the top of the drill. It would have been above the height anyone could reach easily to swap the belt ratio. That is why I thought the power belt would have fed the bottom wheel and then the different belt ratios could have been selected from floor level. I think it looks plausible enough.

Thanks

David

David,

You're absolutely right.  All the pictures of work shops I can see (on google) have lathes and other machines with the belts heading straight up but the limited number of pillar drills all had an intermediate shaft on the ground behind the pillar.   So far it would seem that pillar drills are the only machine I've noticed like this, but I would guess that any machine driven "from the top", like the drill, would have used a similar mechanism.

Live and learn, hopefully.

Jeff.

A thought just crossed my mind.  I would have assumed that the pillar drill in the photo has been adapted to be operated by the floor mounted electric motor (right where all the swarf would be heading).  Would it not have originally been driven from an overhead power shaft (can't think of the proper name at the moment).

Should I have kept the thought to myself?

One way or another, that cannot take anything away from the results though; Just awesome.

Jeff/

Hi Stu,

I have looked at the MERG servo mounts, and thought they were a bit fiddly, especially the "pin" moving between the goal posts.  The wheel I've modelled screws in-place of the arm normally found on a servo so it feels more rigid and secure.  It's also put the loads closer to the motor so the twisting forces are reduced.  To be honest I couldn't quite see how I was going to fit the pin to the arm reliably.

On the subject of the built-in point springs, I would remove them.  They're essential for the electro-magnet point motors, otherwise the blades would not remain in one position or the other.  For a more driven solution like servo motors or stall motor based systems (e.g. tortoise point motors) then the spring is working against you IMHO.  I'd also electrically tie the point blades to their accompanying rail and let the mirco-switch power up the frog.  Of course this last statement is probably only really pertinent to electro frog points.

Jeff

21 hours ago, Stubby47 said:

What would be your estimated cost per complete point, using only one micro switch ( for us non-computer controlled layout builders)?

 

As an option, could you adapt the servo base to also incorporate the micro switches as well? I know this complicates the one unit, but if the servo itself is removable it should still fall in your remit of 'simple to fix'. The advantage is the under-point unit can be dispensed with and replaced by a simple rod with a pin.

Estimated cost per switch is a little tricky.  The servos are really cheap at about £1.15 each off ebay, and a really cheap arduino to run it is about £3.50 but can control a number of servos. 3D printing is cheap but the printer isn't, unless you've a friend with one. How you make it all hang together and operate is really the question, to which there are many approaches, mine being just one (and technically far from the simplest).

Could the switches be incorporated into the servo unit?  Yes. The mount  for the servo has been deliberately centrally located meaning the switches could  be positioned either side as part of the same component. Then,  yes,  it could be used to drive a simple rod and pin to the point. 

Hi Justin,

Yes, the "brains" in the handset is the cheapest Nano compatible board I could find on eBay.  Working on the premise that I was likely to blow at least one up, I didn't want to spend too much.  I think one was about £3.50.  The MCU in the bread board in the title picture is an STM32 based MCU (so a 32 bit ARM processor rather than the 8 bit Atmel AVR chip).  I've had this working too, thinking that the extra speed and memory would improve things, but the tiny Nano works just fine so there was nothing significant to be gained.  The screen is an SPI attached 1.8 inch Colour TFT Display with 128 x 160 Pixels, the most expensive component in the handset!

There's a few things still to polish yet, the development hasn't finished.

Jeff

52 minutes ago, pete_mcfarlane said:

My Finecast I3 had a minor rebuild recently to fix the same issue with the bogie. I fixed it by adding loads of lead to the bogie, and also fitted some wire to the top of the bogie either side of the pivot slot to act as side control springs to help lead it in to curves. It now runs a lot better. 

 

One problem I found was that the body sat a millimetre or two too high, which made the loco look a bit odd.  It was years ago since I did it, but I ended up somehow modifying the body and chassis to get it to sit at roughly the right height. 

Ahh, thanks for your comment.  I had already thought about some form of lateral control on the bogle but will worry about that once the model is complete enough to operate and test.  Not having got the body compete I've not seen how high it rides,  but I'll definitely keep an eye on that now. 

3 hours ago, melmerby said:

Boy is that jib difficult to get aligned, the two halves don't seem to be exact mirrors of each other as the curves are slightly different.

A bit of bodgery and glue everywhere but it now seems reasonable.

 

Keith

Hi Keith,

On the jib I had to resort to a spot of resin putty to fill in some gaps that simply wouldn't be resolved in any other way. I took to assembling it one piece at a time and letting the glue set before tackling the next piece.  It is worth the effort though.

Jeff.

So impressed with the 3D resin printing.  Just getting to grips with a new "old fashioned" PLA printer myself. All good fun.

Hi melmerby (Mel?)

So many of the parts seemed delicate enough to be accidentally blown away by a stray puff of exasperation.  It's amazing how long it can take to find some parts

Yes, the two of the four Jib brace parts on mine were not quite formed, so a few hours gluing and fettling to solve that one.  The repair is hardly invisible, but eventually I couldn't bring myself to file any more away.

Rolling the crane back off the point I can see that they're both sitting properly, but the match wagon still seems a little higher at the buffers.  This could be for other reasons, of course.  For example I might not have the buffer beams quite "upright" despite best attempts to ensure that.  The difference isn't great so I'll probably ignore it for the moment.

Cheers,

Jeff

A set of gauge blocks ... hmmmm

Have wanted some for some time now, but can't quite find the right excuse to get a reasonable set

Thanks for the pointer to KiCad.  The Management and I are cooking up some thing Arduino based and still had a hole in the "How?" part that covered the "sticking it all together in a way which isn't a mess of wires".  She's now looking into designing a board and how we can make it.  Whole new world opening up

From where I'm sitting that looks great.  Awesome!

I really intended to get there this time, but in juggling everything I was trying to achieve yesterday my attention simply slipped past the call time without realising it.  You'll be pleased to hear that I had my head inside modelling activities and ideas, so not a complete loss